


Cecil On The N.T.A.

by ErinPtah



Series: Republic of Heaven Community Radio [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemon Touching, Episode: e029 Subway, F/M, First Time, M/M, Time Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-24 17:30:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1613387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinPtah/pseuds/ErinPtah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Subway" with daemons, in two parts.</p><p>Cecil wanders into the newly-formed Night Vale subway...and ends up trapped for several years, away from his boyfriend, his daemon, and his town. It's only about an hour from Carlos's perspective, but it's one of the most stressful he's ever had. And even after Cecil returns, it isn't easy to re-adjust after being so long away from home.</p><p>On the plus side, there's nothing like mortal terror to inspire you to reach certain physical-intimacy milestones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally intended to be a one-shot, then it doubled. As these things do.
> 
> This goes with [the big long His Dark Materials AU](http://ptahrrific.dreamwidth.org/205307.html), but you can probably read it as a standalone, too. Just know that Carlos studies Dust, Khoshekh is Cecil's daemon, and Cecil has [weird vision](http://erinptah.deviantart.com/art/Perfection-is-in-the-eyes-of-the-beholder-447852390), an alethiometer, and a witch's range.
> 
> Title is a play on [the Kingston Trio's "M.T.A."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP1bvY7IqZY), featuring the immortal lyrics "Did he ever return / No, he never returned / And his fate is still unlearned / He may ride forever 'neath the streets of ~~Night Vale~~ Boston / He's the man who never returned...."

Well, listeners, I have now boarded the subway. They do not appear to be taking Spanish dollars in return for tickets, but rather, sense-memories, so I am embarking on this trip no longer aware of what peaches taste like. I'll have to pick up some at the Raúl's after work.

In the meantime....

...oh, this is embarrassing! It appears the mobile broadcasting equipment is not connecting from within this tunnel, and I am effectively talking to myself.

At least it seems to be recording properly. I'll simply have to play this back as a report once I get home.

To continue. The car I boarded is clean and in good shape, except for what I presume are line maps and advertisements on the walls, which are scuffed and scratched. The only other passenger is a gentleman at the far end of the car. Let's see if I can get him to describe the contents for us.

Sir? Excuse me, sir...?

He appears to be asleep, and not inclined to wake up. Maybe we'll try again later.

The view outside the windows is...dark. Surprisingly, uniformly dark. Even in a tunnel, there's usually some kind of light, isn't there? Perhaps we have exited the tunnel and are in an open landscape that happens to be completely dark. Perhaps we are passing through the Void. It's a little hard to tell.

I'm going to stop recording now, and will return to you once there is something new to report.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Hello, listeners. Me again.

Strictly speaking, there is nothing new to report. We have made no stops. The scenery outside has not changed. My fellow passenger has not woken up. But all this nothing has been going on for just over four hours, which seems noteworthy in itself, if you catch my drift.

I sure hope the weather is still playing.

I can give an accurate report of the time because I have a watch — and not just any watch, but a watch that keeps accurate time. It was a one-month anniversary present from Carlos — _my_ Carlos — my _boyfriend_ Carlos — who, as you know, has made a long-term project out of studying the timepieces in our fair little town. He says this is the only true timepiece he's found all year.

I think some of his fellow experimental theologians might have been a little upset that he gave it away. It's the kind of thing they like to study too, I guess. But Carlos said he thought I might need it, and, what do you know? He was right!

I happen to have one other gift from Carlos with me right now. It's this wonderful scarf he got me for Christmas! He was afraid there wouldn't be much use for a scarf in the middle of the desert, but this subway car has air conditioning, so it's turning out to be very comfortable.

The next time we see each other, I'll have to tell him how useful his presents have been. Maybe tomorrow I'll swing by the chapel at lunch again.

If he doesn't drop by the station first, that is.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Listeners...? Cecil here.

Um, it has been almost eight hours, and I'm getting pretty tired. Not hungry or thirsty, oddly enough...which is a relief, since it's not clear when we will next stop at a station with a restroom. Or any station at all.

Anyway, this is just to let you know that I am going to try to catch a quick nap. These seats aren't the most comfortable for sleeping, but if I fold up my scarf from Carlos into a makeshift pillow, it should be hospitable enough to work with.

I'll be sure to sleep lightly, the way we used to do on stakeouts in the Boy Scouts, so I can wake up if we reach any stops.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

It is the morning of my second day on the subway. We are pulling away from a station. I woke up as we pulled in, and stood eagerly at the doors to see where we had stopped, but it was clearly nowhere near Night Vale. The architecture was strange, almost Franchian, and there was a great body of water visible not far away.

I am still on this train. The gentleman at the other end of the car, though, he disembarked. I am now alone.

Come to think of it, his daemon wasn't with him either.

The weather has almost certainly ended by now. For the first time in my radio career, I have failed to finish a broadcast. My apologies, Night Vale. My apologies.

Station Management is probably in an awful mood by now.

Carlos is probably getting worried.

Or maybe not. After all, Carlos has access to the train schedules. He probably knows when I'll be getting back better than I do.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Listeners, I have been trying for the past three hours to go into four-eye. Distance four-eye is a difficult trick, but my Khoshekh and I have always had something of a knack for it, so if he was also trying to connect his senses with mine at any point during this endeavor, we should have at least been able to tell.

No luck yet. Not that I am getting discouraged! Rome wasn't built in a day, after all. It took at _least_ a week.

I will try for a few more hours, then I'm going to take a stab at astral projection. Never did get the badge for that, but hey, I never had motivation quite like this, right?

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

It is the evening of the second day. I am having no more luck with astral projection than I did back when I was twelve.

My childhood best friend Earl Harlan never had the knack for it either, but at least he could do it well enough to earn the badge. I am trying to remember if he had any tricks for it. Nothing is coming to mind.

If only I had brought my alethiometer! Foolish, shortsighted Cecil. All it would have taken is the Anchor, the Horse, and the Cauldron to ask how to get home. Or, swapping out the Cauldron for the Alpha-and-Omega, to get some idea of how long it's going to take.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

There are new passengers on my car! They boarded at a stop in the middle of the night, which was also not Night Vale, though that is obvious enough just from the fact that these new arrivals have inhumanly long faces and speak only in musical notes.

They all appear friendly, but my efforts to communicate by whistling have fallen flat, if you'll pardon the pun. Oh well. It's nice to have the company again.

It is day three, by the way.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Day four. Still no luck with astral projection.

This morning I finally thought to press the emergency call button. The call was not answered. I'm not sure the button is hooked up, to be honest with you.

I have thought of several other things to try, but most of them require specialized ingredients, and where am I supposed to get fresh sage or eye of newt out here in what may or may not be the middle of the void?

I did at least remember to bring a pocketknife, so blood magic is still a possibility...if I can be sure I have all the runes correct from memory alone.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

[eighteen minutes, four seconds of chanting in Modified Sumerian]

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Listeners, according to the watch Carlos gave me, it is the evening of my seventh day on the subway. I have started marking off the days with tally marks carved into the wall at the back of my seat. The long-faced whistling passengers did not seem to approve of this public vandalism, but we are pulling away from the stop at which they got off, so I do not have to worry about their disapproval any longer.

Carlos and I had dinner plans tonight.

I'm so sorry, Carlos. I hope Khoshekh is with you. I hope he is reassuring you that I am still alive, and that I would come back and be with you if I could.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

I miss you so much, Night Vale.

Your warm sunshine. Your beautiful streets. Your wonderful family-owned businesses and community get-togethers. Your vast, unknowable cosmic mysteries. Your byzantine structure of municipal regulations.

I miss free-scoop Sundays at the White Sands. I miss cheering while the Night Vale Scorpions crush that awful team from Desert Bluffs. I miss the sense of community in clearing away dead animals with your neighbors after the Glow Cloud passes over the block. I miss having a real bed to sleep in.

I do _not_ miss the abominable dry scones of _Steve Carlsberg_. It's a good thing I'm not getting hungry in here, so I don't have to start thinking wistfully back on your miserable excuse for cooking, _Steve_.

It's only been...let me check my tally...two weeks and three days in here, but it feels like years.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Listeners — for whenever this tape is able to have listeners — it has been a month. Just thought I should make a note of that.

Usually there's at least one community shared dream per month, and I always get them. Even when I was on that vacation in Europe, I got them. But they don't seem to be reaching me in here.

I've never been away from my daemon this long.

Maybe you don't think that's a big deal, listeners — at least, not for someone like us. After all, if you know Khoshekh, you know he's a pretty cool customer. Not a big cuddler. But even my dear, aloof daemon needs to press himself against my heartbeat once in a while...and if we've been through a difficult or trying experience, of course we go straight to each other.

My arms...have been wrapped around this folded-up scarf for some time now. I don't know exactly how long. The watch is still working; I just haven't bothered to check.

It's the wrong shape, and it's too small.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Oh, gosh, listeners, what an exciting few days it has been!

I haven't had a chance to make a report since...hm, I guess the last one must have been the one from when I was pretty down, huh? I hope no one was worried too much. Things are looking much brighter now.

Let me backtrack. On the afternoon of my forty-third day on this subway, we made another stop, and the car was boarded by at _least_ twenty puppies.

There was a lot of chasing, and wrestling, and warm furry bodies to snuggle with, and I had forgotten how good exercise feels, you know? I've been trying to get in a lot of pacing on a regular basis, but there hasn't been a single opportunity to run for your life in here, so I'm probably getting a bit out of shape.

It was so nice. A little ray of sunshine in this never-ending nightmare.

Anyway, the puppies just left — although how they could tell it was their stop, I have _no_ idea — and I am _completely_ wiped out, so I'm going to pass out now. Just had to get the hopeful news on record.

[six hours, thirty-four minutes of near silence, except for the ongoing whoosh of the subway, faint sounds of tossing and turning, and the occasional bout of snores]

[stretching, groaning]

[fourteen minutes, forty-seven seconds of quiet crying]

[three minutes, three seconds of chanting in Modified Sumerian before the the tape ends]

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Starting on a fresh tape, Night Vale. Didn't realize I had run through the last one so fast. Good thing that, as a professional, I always carry a few spares.

It is day fifty-one, and there is something going on outside the windows. Very hard to describe, listeners. It is a muted landscape, with the faint glow of some kind of town or village visible out the left side, and it is in rapid motion...but not the motion of flying by as you speed past. Rather, it appears as if the train is holding still in space, and rushing forward through time. The general contours of the landscape rise and fall, and that village...yes, it's definitely bigger than it was a minute ago.

The scenery is full of trees and hills. I believe there is water in the distance. There are more buildings and more people visible every minute. The buildings are a whole city. The people are....

Oh....

Listeners, I think...I think they're having a war now.

I'm going to lie down and cover my head for a while, and pray that when I get up, the war is over.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

It is eighteen minutes since I last stopped the tape. The same landscape — or one very much like it — is still visible out the windows.

They're not having a war any more.

They don't have a city any more either.

I want to go home. I want to go _home_. Why didn't I bring the alethiometer, or some bloodstones, or _anything_ , stupid, _stupid_ Ce—

[tape cuts off mid-word]

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Day seventy-two, and I'm whispering because the car has new passengers. Two of them are human, or at least human-shaped, wearing elaborate wooden-and-feather masks that cover their heads. The other two are hawk-sized birds with human-shaped heads. They haven't attacked me or anything, but they got pretty intense when I tried to talk to them, so I think maybe it would be best to keep to myself for a while.

Now that I'm looking at them again, I think it might be only two passengers. I think the birds are daemons, or something very like daemons. I think —

I think they don't even like me whispering. More later.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Day ninety-six.

The view outside is back to complete blackness. The car is empty again. The passengers with the masks just left, and I am glad, because between you and me, their possibly-daemons were creeping me out.

...That's all. Nothing else has happened. I have nothing to report.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Day one hundred and fourteen.

I am still counting. Because you, dear future listeners, and there _will_ be future listeners, deserve that level of detail. You deserve all the help I can give you in reconstructing these events accurately.

My hair is not growing. Have I mentioned that? I think I said something months ago about how convenient it was not to have to shave, didn't I? But the cuts I've made when I try to do blood-based spells have all healed within a few days, so other biological processes are still working as normal.

What other information are you going to want to know? What further reporting should I be doing?

What would Carlos ask?

...Other than "Cecil, are you okay?" And "when are you coming home?"

I don't _know_ , all right, I don't —

I'm so sorry, dear Carlos. I miss you so much.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Do you remember the first time we met?

I already knew about you, of course. The City Council keeps track of newly-arriving outsiders, and sends bulletins about you to the radio station. Did I ever tell you that it was their bulletin — sponsored by Big Rico's — that first described your hair as perfect? I didn't know yet. I hadn't seen you, I hadn't even looked you up. All I knew was the chapel you were renting, and the Council's description of you, and what you claimed to be.

Then I got to the town meeting, and there you were, and you were _beautiful_. Your hair — they hadn't undersold the hair, not a single lock of it — and your smile, and the way you glowed when you got sidetracked trying to explain to us all just why you find Rusakov particles so fascinating. Wonderful, excited Carlos. You were the brightest thing in the room.

And I love you so much, but Carlos, if you're listening to this...I want you to be happy, okay? If you've...moved on, if you've found someone else....

You know I'm alive out here somewhere, and Khoshekh must still be with you, but it's okay if that isn't enough. You deserve someone to kiss you, hold you, touch you in all the ways I used to, touch you in all the ways I would have if I'd gotten the chance.

If that's what you want! You always seemed so unhurried, so fulfilled just being kissed — and you didn't date at all for the better part of a decade, right? Maybe you'll just fall back into that pattern, and be satisfied with it.

But I'm not going to flatter myself that there's no one else in the world you could look at the way you used to look at me.

Gentle, thoughtful, loving Carlos....

...It's raining.

Can you hear that? On the roof?

I am standing on the seat now, holding the microphone up by the ceiling. It is very loud now. I am not entirely sure if this is what normal rain sounds like...you would know better than me, you who didn't grow up in a desert. You've probably heard so many different kinds of rain.

It makes me think of you. No matter where you've gone since I disappeared, you'll still think of me when the weather is hot and dry and kind of indie, won't you?

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

[six minutes, thirty-two seconds of unintelligible hooting, laughing, and a pounding bass beat]

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Testing, testing, tryin' to make sure this thing still works....

Okay...played that back an' it's still recording. Goody.

My watch says...3:32 in th' afternoon, but it's not specific about the date, and I, hngh, lost track of time for a while there. I'm just gonna keep counting from th' last day I recorded, which was...one hundred and sixty-seven? If I'm counting this right? 'Pologies, listeners. My vision is still a lil' swimmy.

The car had passengers again. Whole crowd of 'em. Kinda like...small elephants, I guess? But without the long necks, or the, what's-it-called, th' dewclaws. An' they were from some kind of...party dimension, or somethin'.

They had a keg, is my point. Mmmm.

I know, I know...don't take drinks from strangers, y'don't know what they're gonna do. But I figure...what's to lose, right? Maybe it teleports me back t'you, Night Vale, if I'm super lucky. Maybe it shuts down my nervous system, if I'm....

Well. It didn't kill me, obviously, since here I am. But I have been real nice an' blind-drunk for...however long.

I _think_ my body's still not needing a restroom...but this car smells real funny now, an' I can't really swear about much of anything that happened, so I dunno.

There's junk all over th' floor now. Torn-up napkins. Crumpled metal cans. The other end of th' car, there's, I guess, some kind of stain...wow, I would not go near that if you paid me. Don't care how many lunches it would get at Jorgé's Tacos. Some things are jus'...not worth it.

Could've gone with 'em, when they got off, last stop. They invited me. At least, I think they did. We, um, we communicated mostly in big gestures an' bro-slaps.

Couldn't go, though. Wasn't Night Vale. Have to get back to Night Vale.

They left me a plastic bowler hat. Wasn't that nice? A lil' big for my anatomy, but, eh, 's the thought that counts.

Mrrgh. I'm gonna put th' hat over my head an' lie down for a while.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

I am starting to forget what my mother's voice sounded like.

That's probably not a subway thing. I had already gone many years without seeing her before I boarded. Likely, even if I had spent these past eight months in my beloved home, I would have forgotten at the same pace.

I still remember the voice of Old Woman Josie perfectly fine, for instance. And the growling, thrashing cry of Station Management. And the deep purrs of my Khoshekh. And the oaky tones in which my beloved Carlos would babble on when he was nervous. And the laughter of little Renée Carlsberg....

She must sound different now, though. She must be growing up so fast.

You better be taking good care of her, _Steve_. And please, in the name of the beams, find and recruit someone to teach her how to use apostrophes properly, because you are a _disaster_ at it.

I still remember Mom's face, at least. I remember being allowed to braid her long white hair. I remember the notes she would leave in my lunch, and how much fun I had trying to decipher the runes. I remember when we were very small, how Khoshekh would turn into a bird and go flying with her daemon, practically getting swept away by the beating of his mighty wings.

I remember...some things I would rather forget, to be honest with you. But no family member is perfect, right? They become perfect when....

Excuse me, listeners. Something is happening. A shape is appearing in the middle of the car.

If it is a portal....

It is humanoid. It....

"Hello?"

_Dana?_

"Cecil! You can see me? Hear me?"

Yes! Dana, how did you get here? How can I —

Oh, I see.

Astral projection. You are not, strictly speaking, here at all.

"That's right, Cecil. But at least we can still talk! That is a step up from the last time our paths crossed. You were in your booth at the station. You looked much the same as you do now, perhaps with a few more lines around your eyes, and there was more white in your hair. I did not want to interrupt the broadcast...but it turned out not to matter, because you couldn't even tell I was there."

You saw a broadcast? Do you remember what I was talking about?

"I remember that the traffic signals were malfunctioning. The walk signs were all stuck on WALK, which is strange, because they don't have a signal that says WALK at all. I remember thinking it was very harmonious in theme, because walking was all I had been doing, out in a completely different desert."

Then I must make it back to Night Vale! Oh, Dana — I have no idea how you got unstuck in time like this, but thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

"I've seen so many things, Cecil. I don't know if time is running out of order in the dimension I am in, or if I am just having really serious trouble with astral projection, but I keep ending up in the past. Or the future. Or the wrong world altogether. I have seen my own future self, back in my parents' home in Night Vale, though, so I know that one day I will make it home too."

That's wonderful news!

Have you — by any chance — have you seen Carlos?

"I saw him once! But I don't know what time it was for him. He and his daemon were in a hotel room, and outside the windows I could see a large city with many skyscrapers. He did not respond when I spoke to him. Perhaps he was just very focused on his work. It certainly made him look...upset. No, not upset. Frustrated."

I see. Well...thank you anyway. Thank you for telling me.

How are you doing? Is your journey going well?

"It's hard to tell. I think so. My daemon found me a few weeks ago, and everything seems much more promising with her around. She said E------- showed her the way to —"

Who?

"The Man in the Tan Jacket. I forgot, you can't keep track of his name. He's the one who taught me how to do astral projection, too. He says he believes in me. Of course, he could just be trying to be encouraging."

Or he could be doing some kind of misdirection. I don't trust that guy.

"You can trust him, Cecil! He loves Night Vale. He —"

Dana?

Hello?

Dana, I can no longer see or hear you, but if you are still here...please be safe, and well. And please, if you see them again, tell Carlos and Khoshekh that I love them?

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

One year, listeners. One year later.

The view outside the windows is spectacular tonight. Some kind of galactic swirls and spirals, dusted with millions of sparkling stars. Which is strange, because that's normally the kind of thing I can't see without Khoshekh's help. But it is here, and it is beautiful.

I wish you could see it, Night Vale. I wish you could study it, Carlos.

I am still holding the scarf you gave me, I....

[choking sound, tape cuts off]

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Did the worlds ever exist at all?

Have I spent my whole life in this subway car, and created in my mind a vast landscape of people and histories to keep the silence, the loneliness, the inescapable terror of nothingness from closing in?

Is this mobile broadcasting equipment even real, or am I hallucinating it as a last-ditch effort to keep myself from the knowledge that I am talking to myself, and only to myself, and always have been?

You must admit, my brave and beautiful Carlos, that your existence seems very improbable. Even if someone as perfect as you did walk into a town that I lived in, what are the odds you would love someone like me, really? Oh, you were fascinated with me — I was a fascinating person in this fantasy life of mine, one of the most well-known figures in town, always saying things that caught your interest, that made you want to ask questions. But to be in love with me?

You are the strongest evidence that none of it was real.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Good news, listeners: At least something is real!

I have fellow-passengers again, here at the three-hundred-and-ninety-five-day mark. Two older adults and three younger, all with dark hair and brightly-colored butterfly daemons. They do not speak Spanish, but we are able to make some rudimentary communication.

[Four seconds of Cecil speaking Huizhou Chinese, including the word "hello".]

[multiple voices in chorus, strongly accented] "Hello!"

They have agreed to let me record while we talk about their world. I'll try to provide a translation later.

[Twenty-six minutes of conversation in Huzihou Chinese, before tape cuts out.]

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Time once again for a fresh tape.

The passengers departed this morning, day four hundred and fourteen, but they left me a gift. A book made of bound wooden tablets with wax surfaces, into which are carved a set of fiendishly clever number puzzles, and a bone stylus with which to fill them out. Dare I hope that something will come of this, listeners? There are, after all, so many things one can do once you have a supply of wax and a bit of fresh bone....

Not that I am talking about any kind of secret witch-lore, of course. Why would I know how to do something like that?

If this is the last entry recorded, you will know that I have made it home.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Four hundred and twenty-nine days.

I'll be honest with you, listeners. I would have given up and stopped marking off time weeks ago, if it weren't for the fact that counting is a thing to do, and those can be in awfully short supply around here.

The subway is passing through another time-lapse war. There were bombs, last time I looked. I have not looked since. I have not had any more luck with astral projection or four-eye, either, even with the aid of certain procedures which are definitely not the well-guarded inheritance of Mom's people.

On the plus side, I'm really getting quite good at these number puzzles.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Four hundred and forty-four days.

I just wanted to make a note of that. It's a fun number, listeners. Numbers. Fun.

You cannot possibly grasp the depths to which I miss television.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Did I ever mention the humming sphere of light that's been riding along with me?

Yeah, that's the little musical noise in the background. It got on about a month ago, I think. Forgot to note the exact date, sorry. Can't tell if it's ever tried to communicate, or what it's thinking about me, or if it sees me at all.

It's not very interesting company, but at least the humming is pretty. Soothing to fall asleep to.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

I've been thinking of you a lot again lately, Carlos.

You in the desert, brilliant under the heat, taking readings with that complicated equipment of yours which I am not remotely qualified to describe. You beside me in the car, ducking toward me for a good-night kiss with those perfect lips. You in front of an audience, caught up in explaining some new discovery, so earnest and eager. You in bed, in a soft cotton pajama-type chapel coat, with darling Isaña rolled up on her cushion in the basket beside you.

Does she sleep in a basket? Her range is long enough that she wouldn't need to sleep in the bed with you, but maybe that's what you like anyway.

Khoshekh had a basket, but he hardly ever slept in it. I was always finding him in shelves, or on top of high cupboards, or under the bureau, or rolled up in the sink...when he slept at home at all. He was so flexible, it seemed like he could squeeze himself into almost anything.

Dear Khoshekh. What are you doing these days? Has Josie been taking care of you? If anyone will know what to do for you, she will.

I haven't felt you in any serious pain. You must not have been attacked or harmed while I've been in here. Unless we're now so far apart that the feeling wouldn't have made it across our connection...but I would rather not think about that, if it's all right.

My Khoshekh....

It still isn't as bad as when I was torn away from you. Nothing could be as bad as that.

...which is a secret process, but I guess it hardly matters if I mention it on tape, since no one is ever going to listen.

And we made it through that, didn't we? Hardly got out of bed for a week, didn't go back to school for a month, but we made it. Old Woman Josie made all the tea we could drink, Mom brought us lots of ice cream, and Earl came over every afternoon. We played all that Scrabble and Monopoly. Has Carlos told you how the version of Monopoly he gets in the US doesn't mention Marcus Vansten or bloodstone circles at all? How exotic, right?

We were talking about having some kind of game night at some point. Not a date, but a get-together with more than just the two of us, because some of these games tend to stall and go on forever if you only have two people....

We learned that as kids, right, Khoshekh? We must have. I don't remember having those kind of stalled games with Earl, but if it was just the two of us, then logically....

Or was there someone else with us? Some other childhood friend I've forgotten about? Or been re-educated to erase all awareness of?

You would help me remember. I miss you. I need you.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

I did make a record of it last year when we had all the puppies, right?

If we pass by another puppy dimension, I'm getting off this train. It can't be any harder to get back to Night Vale from there than here, and at least it'll make it easier to remember, along the way, that a reality outside of myself exists.

It does, doesn't it?

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Five hundred and nineteen days.

I just spent half an hour counting up all these stupid tally marks to tell you that. Subway maintenance is being very lax, letting me get away with all this vandalism and not stepping in once. You hear that, guys? I am defacing your property! Come and get me!

And I could do worse. See these lovely seats, with their cloth cushions? Now see this pocketknife? If you don't come and drag me off to detention with the Sheriff's secret police _right now_ , say goodbye to what I assume are carefully market-tested bland patterns!

All right, you asked for it!

[five minutes, twenty-four seconds of fabric tearing, threads snapping]

[heavy breathing] Yeah, that's right. That'll...show you. Yeah.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

The humming sphere of energy just departed, into a world that was so searingly hot I couldn't even bear to get near the doors until the train pulled away from the station.

I hope it enjoys its destination, wherever it is. _What_ ever it is.

Five hundred and some days. Let me double-check.

[brisk, mumbled counting]

Five hundred and fifty-eight.

Dammit, I missed commemorating the five hundred and fifty-five mark.

The windows are hot to the touch. I'm going to lie down for a while and try to dream of snow.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Five hundred and ninety-four days. Half past six in the afternoon, if you want to know.

I can't remember what Carlos smells like.

I paid a sense-memory to get in here in the first place, but it wasn't that, was it? I wouldn't have given up a single shred of memory about Carlos. Not even for a second.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Dear listeners...I am feeling better than I have in quite some time.

Let me start at the beginning. This morning — day six hundred and twenty-six — two new passengers boarded the train, from a world that was dim and featureless. A man and a woman, humanoid, with no daemons. They both had thinning hair and lined faces, but looked strong and healthy, and their faces shone so brightly when each looked at the other: so glad to be together that at first they hardly noticed I was there.

Seeing them together turned the dull ache in my heart of missing Carlos into a sharp, roaring pain. I tried to curl up in my seat and not make any undue noise, but in time they saw that I was quite upset, and were gracious enough to offer their company.

They sat beside me. We spoke English; their accents were unfamiliar, but I understood well enough. They were kind.

I told them about my home, and my friends, and the beloved Carlos I left behind almost two years ago. I told them how Dana, if it was truly Dana and not a hallucination, predicted that I would return home one day, but how you, my Carlos, might or might not have been long gone.

The woman said there might be a way to reach you, to leave my body behind and communicate with you, even across the worlds. But when we spoke about it in detail, it turned out she was talking about what we call astral projection, and I had to explain that I've been trying to learn since I was a child, with no luck yet.

So instead they asked if I wanted to talk about you. And I did.

I told them about times you were brave, at risk to your own life, and other times you put yourself in danger out of sheer determination to learn. I told them how you were cute when you worried, and irresistible when you laughed. I told them how you showed me things, amazing things I never realized the universe held. I told them how you were so honest by nature, but how you were learning to lie and manipulate, little by little.

They said you sounded wonderful. They said it was so clear how much I loved you, and why. The man was the quieter of the two, less ready with his words, but he said you sounded like the best kind of scholar, and she agreed. Oh — I showed them the scarf! Both their worlds have a Harvard, it turns out, and they've both worked with scholars, so that basically makes them experts on the subject.

Neither of them told me you would surely still be waiting when I got home. They don't know you well enough to make promises like that.

But they said you might. Loves have waited longer. They said not to lose hope.

And even if the worst has happened...even if you've died while I was away, and didn't make it back this time...there's no law that says you have to pass on through the world of the dead before I get there.

It is late now by my watch, but must have been later still for my new co-passengers, because they have gone to sleep. What luck I didn't destroy _all_ the seats in that fit of destructive violence a couple of months ago, huh, listeners? They are leaning on each other's shoulders. It doesn't look like it should be comfortable, but their faces are so peaceful.

I asked, earlier, if they could read the station maps over the subway doors. Neither of them was familiar with the script, but the woman copied the runes down carefully onto one of my wax tablets. I am beginning to translate them now.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Ngh...'s th' middle of th' night, but that's when we stopped.

Beautiful landscape outside. Soft, bright, woodland-y. Little rushing streams. Long-throated flowers on th' threes.

The man and woman wished me all the luck in th' worlds and disembarked, hand in hand. Watched 'em step through the door, called thanks, waved a sleepy goodbye. Then the doors slid closed and I looked out the window...no sign of 'em.

Wonder what that was all 'bout.

Eh. Whoever they are, wherever they went...I am glad they are together. Somebody ought to be.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Day six hundred and twenty-seven.

I have spent most of the day translating these runes.

If I am correct — and, oh, how I pray that I am — central Night Vale is in another three stops.

I can wait for three stops. However many years it takes.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Dana, you must be almost eighteen by now. Your daemon will have settled, surely. I wonder what you turned out to be.

Renée, how's middle school? I hope you're studying hard, and practicing your aim regularly. I hope Steve has stopped trying to contribute to your bake sales by now.

Are there still experimental theologians in Night Vale? Any of the same ones, or a whole new round? Have you done what you were prophesied to do? Have you made any more exciting theological breakthroughs?

Is Carlos still with you?

How's the bowling league, Old Woman Josie? Are you still playing host to those tall friends of yours? I hope you've stayed in town. With me and Mom both gone, maybe you've decided to fly back to your clan...but it's so hard to imagine a Night Vale without you.

It's downright impossible to imagine Night Vale without a Voice, so...whoever you are that's filling my chair, I hope you're proving equal to the pivotal task of hosting a community radio show. Because if you aren't, I will have you out of that booth so fast it'll make your head spin.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

[sounds of a crowd]

Listeners, I hope you can hear me over this noise!

I am squeezed into a seat here in the corner, with the mobile broadcasting equipment tucked behind my feet. I can't get to my tally of days right now, but I believe it was in the six-eighty, six-ninety range.

Anyway, we just stopped at an underground station that was _full_ of people, and at least a hundred of them tried to cram into this car. One of them tried to bring his bike, too. I mean, rude! A rush-hour subway needs to prioritize room for the humans, and parahumans, and other persons of human intelligence, not some guy's giant bicycle.

...And the guy next to me has his backpack half in my lap. Excuse me, sir — excuse me — would you move, please? Some of us are trying to take up only as much space as —

Oh, sure, yell at _me_ , and not that kid with her music turned up so loud I can hear it from the other side of the car.

Let us hope that rush hour in this dimension doesn't last too many days.

And, um, I think I hear a woman complaining on her cell phone about all the destroyed seats, so let us hope nobody comes along and impounds these tapes as evidence.

How is she even getting cell reception down here?

All right, all right, I —

[two minutes, twelve seconds of group howling]

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Testing, testing. I dearly hope this is recording, because I want to be able to overwrite all the racket on the last half of this poor tape.

Okay, we seem to be in business! What a relief.

So obviously we went through a tunnel there, as you could have guessed by the way we started howling. The good news is, it was a success; the void did not follow us in, none of the knifelike claws that scrabbled at our windows managed to shatter them, and we reached a stop, where most of that awful horde of people cleared out. Unfortunately, in the process I have lost track of time, again. It is 3:26 in the morning. What morning, I cannot say.

This is day seven hundred and three of days I have recorded. That does not count the unknowable span of time within the tunnel, the days between when I flung this watch away from me in a furious spasm of grief and when I whispered gentle apologies as I retrieved it, and those blessed weeks I got to pass in companionable drunkenness, back when I had companions with drinks.

At least I have room to stretch again. There is more trash on the floor than ever, but the only other figures in seats are handful of tiny people riding a carriage strapped to the back of an _adorable_ dog, a couple of jackal-headed women talking to each other in what sounds like Double Arabic, and what is either a sleeping person in a huge fur coat or a sleeping creature that is huge and furry.

I am going to pace for a while now. Get the blood flowing. If indeed my blood has been flowing normally at all for the past couple of years. It's hard to tell.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

The windows of the car are cold to the touch.

One of the jackal-headed women has explained to me that we are driving through a great field of ice. There is frost feathering along the corners of the windows. Drifts of snow blow past our tracks.

I am chilly, listeners. My scarf is bundled warmly around my neck and chin, but it is not enough.

I am going to ask the personage with all the fur, which may or may not be a coat, if they will share.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

[Forty-eight seconds of quiet breathing.]

...I'm sorry, listeners. I thought I had something to say, but it seems I do not.

[A further three minutes, seven seconds of quiet.]

Was I ever this tired when I lived in Night Vale? So thoroughly, unshakably, constantly tired?

I remember having more energy. But I remember so many things. The sight of fireworks going off in a clear night sky. The taste of Old Woman Josie's scones. The sharp warning pinch of my daemon's claws. The silky softness of Carlos's hair curling around my fingers. It all feels so much like a long dream.

I can't remember what your eyes look like, Carlos.

I should have made Khoshekh help me look at you for so much longer, until I had memorized every detail. Every fleck of color in your eyes, the curl of every eyelash, every subtle variation of the warm browns on your dark, delicate skin.

I should have done so many things.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

The car is slowing!

We are approaching a station. An underground station. It may be _my_ station.

If the runes are correct...if I am not being a hopeless fool, letting myself get lost in wishful thinking....

I don't even remember what the station looked like when I first boarded this damnable train. I spent less than a minute observing it, so eager was I to move further in, to get the real scoop about what subway travel itself was like.

And of course, it may have been remodeled over these past years.

So much of you may have been remodeled, my beloved long-lost town. I can only imagine how it will feel to set foot in you again after so long away. But any difference will be worth it. All I want is to return to Night Vale. At any price.

Please be Night Vale.

Please be Night Vale.

Please be home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus links: more readers have done fabulous art for this universe! By flameraven: [Isaña and Khoshekh cuddles](http://flameraven.tumblr.com/post/84011457378/did-this-a-few-weeks-back-and-entirely-forgot-to). By chess_ka, a complete set of experimental theologians! [Adriana, Brad, Carlos](http://chess-ka.tumblr.com/post/83408152048/i-wanted-to-draw-different-people-and-i-wanted-to); [Dotan, Emily, Fleur](http://chess-ka.tumblr.com/post/83739572850/the-second-set-of-original-character-portraits); [Gerald, Henriette, Ichiro](http://chess-ka.tumblr.com/post/84062633835/the-third-set-of-scientist-ocs-from-he-says-he-is); [Jordan, Köhler, the Li Huas, and Mateo](http://chess-ka.tumblr.com/post/86638609461/the-last-for-now-set-of-original-characters).
> 
> Don't forget to check the [His Dark Materials AU masterpost](http://ptahrrific.dreamwidth.org/205307.html) for more art, other links, and all the background information you could want.

The brochure is stuck under the door of the experimental theologians' rental house when Carlos gets up in the morning, and sure enough, one of the brand-new subway entrances has appeared at the end of the block.

"Well, I know what I'm going to study today," he announces as the team assembles post-breakfast. "Who's with me?"

Their geneticist(s), Li Hua and her double (with matching wren daemons perched on their shoulders), confiscate the brochure. "What is this printed on?" asks one. "Snakeskin?"

"Looks like insect-wing to me," says the other, popping it into a sample bag. "Either way, we're doing DNA tests on it as soon as we get the chance."

They could study the entrance by the house, but all the equipment they would use is down at the chapel, so the five experimental theologians pile into a couple of vehicles and make the drive. As luck would have it, another subway station has appeared across from Big Rico's. Henriette is still technically in charge, for reasons of prophecy, but she doesn't need to hand down marching orders; they split up by specialty without even having to think about it.

"Portals," reports Keith Köhler, after he and his binturong daemon have taken the equipment down the brightly-lit stairs and into the body of the subway. "They appear to be on either end of the track. The physical tunnel in this world cannot stretch more than ten meters in either direction before the trains simply exit this world."

"But they're not registering as dangerous," adds Henriette, her alpine marmot at her side. "At least, not any more dangerous than where we are already. For all we know, they _don't_ leave this world, they just jump straight to the entrance tunnels of the next stations on the line."

"Maybe the Night Vale Transit Authority decided opening a bunch of portals would be cheaper than manually doing all the digging," says Carlos. He's kidding. Mostly.

His own daemon — his perfect and beautiful Isaña — nudges his leg to get his attention. "We've got passengers."

Sure enough, there's a handful of mostly-normal humans wandering up out of the subway. They're all in two pieces, and still seem to be moving just fine under their own power, but they look...frayed around the edges, somehow. Like a photogram that wasn't exposed quite right.

" _Perdon,_ " says Carlos to the passengers, switching from English to Night Vale's native Spanish. Part of the reason he's stationed up here is because he's the most fluent speaker on the team: the one most able to actually communicate with the citizens they want to experiment on. "Would you be willing to let us study your health, to learn about the effects of this subway? _Por el teólogie experimental?_ "

He gestures toward the nearby Li Hua, who has a chair and some equipment set up in the bed of the truck. She's the one who will be collecting most of the material (while the second Li Hua is stationed in the chapel, ready to start analyzing). The other reason Carlos is working alongside her is to make sure she doesn't conveniently skip any ethics guidelines in the process.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Cecil shows up around lunch time, via the well-established and portal-free Night Vale bus system.

 _His_ daemon is nowhere to be seen. That fact used to give Carlos the creeps, but now it seems much less startling than Cecil's choice of outfit. (Today: the crimson-and-white-striped Harvard knit scarf Carlos bought him, a white T-shirt with a giant strawberry embroidered on it in sequins, a comically oversized belt, and olive-green pants so flared at the ends that each calf has its own pleats.)

And even the outfit is mostly just endearing. Cecil has been visually impaired since he was a teenager, entirely colorblind, not even able to see things in different values of brightness or darkness. All he sees is physical forms — more like he's using sonar than anything related to visible light. So he picks clothes based on whether they have appealing silhouettes, textures, patterns made of raised material (say, sequins) instead of printed or dyed into the fabric...and ends up with an aesthetic that is weird, unique, and starting to give Carlos a Pavlovian happiness-response every time he sees someone wearing furry pants or a hat covered in fake fruit.

Cecil greets him with a peck on the lips, and they duck into the refreshing air conditioning of Big Rico's for their mandatory weekly slice. Carlos actually had his on Tuesday, and pizza isn't his favorite, but he'd happily eat a lot worse for the pleasure of Cecil playing footsie with him under the table.

Since Khoshekh isn't there to wrap around Isaña, the little armadillo sits on the table next to Carlos's plate, and they both bask in Cecil's voice.

They talk about the subway. They talk about work things. They talk about their friends, and their friends' kids: the Girl Scout badges Steve Carlsberg's daughter has earned this month, the honest bill-paying job Henriette's college-dropout son finally found for the summer. They talk about the inexplicable giant tongues that have started growing out of the surface of Route 800.

They move freely between Spanish and English. Carlos switches back and forth based on whichever one is easiest to use for any given topic (say, English for Henriette's kid, Spanish for Steve's), and Cecil pretty much just follows his lead.

It still isn't clear how many languages Cecil is fluent in. His own upbringing was almost exclusively Spanish-speaking, and he only studied Modified Sumerian in school, but any native tongue of any citizen of Night Vale seems to be within his grasp.

With all these things to talk about, half an hour flies by. They move on to the topic of when to meet next. Then the topic of where to get dinner reservations next Thursday.

 _You could always just come over to my place,_ Carlos thinks. _I could make chili, we could pick out something to watch on Netflix, we could make out on the couch, we could go upstairs...._

But the last time Cecil dropped Carlos off and walked him to the door, it turned out every one of his colleagues had made independent plans to spy on their goodbye makeout session. He doesn't even want to _think_ about having Cecil in his bed with an unknown number of ears outside the door.

And inviting himself over to Cecil's just seems presumptuous. Although maybe it isn't? Carlos has no idea what the social conventions are, here. Carlos has had sex with exactly two people in his whole life, and both of them did ninety percent of the initiating. Why can't Cecil invite _him_ home for the night, and save them both the trouble?

As always, Carlos's brain spins in circles on this while his mouth says nothing at all. He walks Cecil to the bus stop, and plays with Cecil's hair (the white streak over his forehead, which he dyed black to match the rest a while ago, now mostly visible again) until the bus comes to carry the Voice of Night Vale back to the radio.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

"According to our station's research into the issue, there are no records of the Night Vale Transit Authority ever creating a subway system, or getting one approved, or even having discussed building one, nor has there ever existed a Night Vale Transit Authority...."

Cecil's show has begun, and the dulcet tones of Cecil's Voice follow Carlos all through the early evening. The big old-fashioned radio in the chapel, the radio of the truck parked next to the subway station, the radio on speaker in Starbucks when he steps in to pick up the team's coffee orders.

When Carlos is out and about, sometimes people will throw him these little sidelong looks and whisper to their daemons, or to whoever else they're with. Carlos is whisper-worthy for a lot of reasons (again, there's prophecy involved), but when it happens with Cecil's voice in the air he just thinks _yeah, that's right, that's **my** boyfriend._

"Just a quick aside, listeners — we'll get back to the subway news in a moment — but would anyone like a child?" asks Cecil as Carlos retrieves the coffee. "Because I'm never quite sure what to do with the messenger children the City Council sends us. I'm not even sure if the child is completely sentient. This one's daemon isn't even moving, just lying over its shoulder in the form of some kind of worm, and...oh! Nope! No, they've wandered off. Never mind."

"That was close," says Isaña under her breath as they sneak out of the Starbucks through the standard hidden trap door in the men's room.

Carlos tries to imagine Cecil enjoining him to take on a kid, and agrees. "We'll have to remember to tell him the messenger children are sapient. All the ones we've measured, at least. Rusakov concentrations well within the norm for unsettled children of their sizes."

They get back to the station, where Henriette is offering a bandage to a man with a roadrunner daemon, while the current Li-Hua-in-residence puts his blood and saliva samples on ice and prints up a label.

"Carlos — caring and reliable Carlos the experimental theologian — thinks maybe the riders' DNA has been washed out, emptied, completely drained of its contents."

Henriette frowns at the truck radio. "Did you seriously give Cecil the DNA-washed-out line?"

"The what?" asks Li Hua.

Carlos bites his lip. "Uh, it's this thing we used to say about the genes of people who've spent a long time out of their own world. Back when we only had physicists on the team, before we realized we should hire some biologists, and get a more accurate description."

Li Hua glares at him. "So now you _have_ us, and you gave him your weird made-up term anyway? That isn't even how DNA works!"

"I didn't know he would say it on the air!"

"He says _everything_ you say on the air! Haven't you noticed that yet?"

"I hate to say it," puts in Henriette, "but the woman has a point. Did you even explain the implications?"

"I, um. I did not." In Carlos's defense, Cecil had been licking tomato sauce off his fingers at the time. Remarkably distracting. Frankly, Carlos figures he deserves some commendation for managing to be coherent at all.

Li Hua folds her arms. "So call him and issue a correction."

"He's in the middle of a show...."

"It's almost time for the weather, right? He can take a call while the music's playing. Are you a boyfriend first, or an experimental theologian first?"

That's a low blow. Which is probably why she used it. "All right, all right, I'm calling."

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Even with the weather playing, Cecil doesn't pick up.

Carlos leaves a message.

As he's wrapping it up, Köhler reports that another group of passengers have gotten off the latest train, and these ones don't appear to be in the right world at all. Anywhere else on the planet, meeting them would be a theological marvel. Here, it's a standard municipal procedure. Henriette flags down the nearest member of the Sheriff's secret police, and explains to Köhler how new arrivals are welcomed to Night Vale.

Carlos is just relieved Köhler is asking. Back when he first joined the team, his instinct was to restrain first and ask questions later. Like his binturong daemon did when they first met Khoshekh....

"Carlos!"

Well, speak of the devil.

The otherworldly margay is soaring down the twilight-dim street toward them. For a moment Carlos thrills to the sight...until he notices how frantic Khoshekh looks, flowing toward them like a dappled missile, tail a huge puff of fur at his back. And his voice! Most of the time Khoshekh sounds like the deepest, most resonant version of Cecil, with just a touch of purr. Now, calling Carlos's name again, he's in such a state that he's almost a tenor.

Carlos abandons the team to jog down the sidewalk. Isaña — tiny, but faster than she looks — motors along at his heels. "We're here! What is it?"

Khoshekh's violet eyes are wide, the whites visible all around the edges. "Cecil —"

The distance between them closes. Carlos slows to meet him, heels skidding against the cement.

Khoshekh _doesn't_ slow down —

— and before Carlos can process what's happening, Khoshekh _crashes against his chest_. "Cecil's gone! He's gone and I don't know where, and it hurts. I can't go into four-eye. I can't tell what he's doing at all!"

Carlos staggers backward, instinct taking over while his brain is too astonished to function. You don't touch someone else's daemon, you _never_ touch someone else's daemon — Khoshekh must be panicking, forgetting to be careful, so distracted that he'll hurt himself.

But as Carlos moves, Khoshekh _follows_. Hooks his claws into Carlos's chapel coat, leans his body against Carlos's torso, rubs his face all over Carlos's neck and jaw. "And he's scared and sad and lonely and he _needs_ me, Carlos, and I'm not _there_ —"

Carlos swallows. "I — I'm here for you," he manages to say. "Right here. Whatever you need, I — should I hold you?"

The margay's head butts up against his chin. "Carlos, please...!"

So Carlos, dazed and only half-thinking about what he's doing, wraps Khoshekh in a tight embrace and buries his fingers in thick, soft fur.

Whatever power Khoshekh uses to float, it dials down, then off. His full weight settles into Carlos's arms, tail whipping back and forth against Carlos's stomach. Once Carlos has adjusted his grip to make sure Khoshekh is stable, he carries the shivering soul of his boyfriend back down the sidewalk to his team.

They're all staring at him like he just grew a second head.

...or rather, like he just grew some appendage they _haven't_ seen people spontaneously grow before. (Which, after all these months in Night Vale, is not a long list.)

Carlos doesn't try to explain. He's as gobsmacked as they are, but that's not important right now. What's important is this:

"Cecil's in the subway."

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

They leave the Li Huas in the chapel, take the equipment, and park outside the subway station across from the NVCR studio. Henriette and Köhler take a fresh set of readings. Carlos sits in the bed of the truck: babysitting some of the larger equipment, running analyses on the laptop they got enchanted to run without batteries (the only drawback is that sometimes the screen turns red and it starts howling, which is easy to fix by rebooting), and cradling Khoshekh and Isaña in his lap.

It's been decades since Carlos has held a daemon this (relatively) large. He's never once had to carry an animal with Khoshekh's diamond-shaped limb configuration. The balance, the weight distribution, everything is jarringly unfamiliar.

But Khoshekh needs to be held, and in the absence of Cecil he's chosen Carlos for the job, so Carlos adjusts as well as he can.

"Any luck?" asks Henriette, startling Carlos into a jump and a gasp as she leans on the tailgate.

 _Yes,_ thinks Carlos. He's lucky to have met Cecil. He's lucky that, whatever the subway is currently putting Cecil through, it hasn't made Khoshekh disappear right out of his arms.

But Henriette isn't asking about that. She's asking about the images on his screen: the crudely-drawn map of the subway system from the brochures, next to their own hand-created plot of Night Vale with the known subway entrances marked down. The map on the brochures is obviously stylized, but worse than that, the routes are all spasming slightly. Even in a still scan.

"I think the Mission Grove Park and Old Town stops are next to each other, and the one at the end of our block is on the same branch as the one by the chapel," Carlos tells her. "This station, I can't even figure out what route it's on."

"Well, keep working on it." Henriette's eyes keep darting down to Khoshekh, then relentlessly focusing on other things. "If we can leave you here and go check out the next station down, we can try to figure out how they connect."

"My money's on 'not at all'." Every subject they've interviewed has come up out of the same station they went into. Carlos has a feeling that each entrance is connected to its own independent multi-world loop of stops, with just the single connection back to Night Vale.

"And I don't actually think we're going to pull off anything useful if we split up, with only three Rusakov particle physicists to go around," admits Henriette. They do have a few more team members hired...none of whom are scheduled to arrive until next month. "But it's the only bright idea I have, here."

Carlos rubs Isaña's ears. "Are there wall maps inside the station itself? High-res ones, maybe even with labels? Can you get photos without going through the turnstiles?"

"Good thought. We'll check."

As she and her marmot daemon go retrieve one of the cameras, Khoshekh buries his nose against Carlos's stomach. Carlos swallows and runs his fingers through Khoshekh's thick, soft coat, overwhelmed all over again.

It isn't like this is unheard-of. There are case studies and everything! It's just _unbelievably_ rare, to be able to touch someone like this without it being a sickening violation. To have someone love and trust you so deeply that they get comfort, not pain, out of having your hands _there_.

"How are you doing?" he asks softly.

In a small voice, Khoshekh says, "Separation was worse."

So it's only the second-worst experience of his life. At least that's...something?

Carlos has seen Cecil stroke Khoshekh's fur and skritch under his chin, so he mimics the motions. Then he rubs Khoshekh's ears, the way he would to comfort his own daemon. _Cecil, wherever you are...please feel this. Please let this help._

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

When the ground starts to shake underneath them, Carlos's first instinct is to get up and get away from the truck. He doesn't know much about earthquakes — there's never been one in this part of Hispania Nova all the time he's lived here — but as a former city-dweller he knows a few things about subways, and rushed construction jobs, and tunnel collapses.

Before he can move, the brightly-lit stairwell coughs up a massive cloud of dark-winged locusts and jewel-bright dragonflies, momentarily blotting out the streetlamps.

Carlos freezes. Khoshekh raises his head, ears flattened back...then harrumphs. "Just the express coming in. It'll get hot in a second."

No sooner has he said it than a wave of heat billows over them. Carlos shrugs off his chapel coat, glad he's only wearing a T-shirt and not one of his flannel button-downs, and reaches for a water bottle.

Sure enough, as the heat dies down and the last swirls of insects trail away into the sky, a fresh stream of people starts to wander up out of the entrance. The light of the streetlamps and the pale half-moon falls down across their worn, confused, washed-out faces.

Including — are Carlos's lovelorn eyes playing tricks on him? —

Cecil. Smiling in wonder as he gazes around at the buildings, with the mobile broadcasting equipment trotting agreeably at his heels.

"Cecil!" shouts Khoshekh, and Cecil turns to them, eyes widening in astonishment: " _Carlos?_ "

Then he's running toward them, _laughing_ , like the whole thing is a wonderful joke, like he didn't just disappear for almost an hour and worry Carlos half to death. He doesn't even blink at the sight of his own daemon flowing up out of Carlos's lap to meet him. Carlos sets Isaña down, swings his legs off the end of the tailgate, and hits the ground just in time for Cecil to crash into him, arms flung around his neck. "Carlos, oh, _Carlos!_ "

Carlos doesn't return the embrace, and not just because of the lifelong instinct to be careful hugging someone whose daemon is wrapped around their shoulders. "Cecil! What were you thinking?" he demands. "You knew the subway wasn't safe! What if you had died in there? What if you never came back? Stop laughing, this isn't funny, I was _scared!_ "

It's like Cecil isn't even listening. He just nuzzles Carlos's neck, bubbling over with delight. "Yell at me, Carlos, yell at me all you want — you're still _here!_ And Khoshekh, oh, my Khoshekh —"

The margay rubs his face possessively up against Cecil's jaw. "Cecil, we have to hurry. We have to get back to the station. We have to finish the show."

"The show...?" The phrase seems to take Cecil's breath away. "Does that mean...is _the weather still on?_ "

"Of course it is," says Carlos. Like Cecil doesn't know perfectly well that the Weather can last an hour or more on his own relative time scale when it has to.

"I have to finish the show," breathes Cecil, sounding disbelieving and giddy all at once. "Dear Carlos — will you wait in my office, please? For just a few minutes? I have to _finish_ my _show!_ "

Is he _high?_ What the hell is going on?

Carlos stammers something like _okay_ , and Cecil plants a wet kiss on his cheek before running for the station doors, Khoshekh soaring alongside his shoulder and the mobile broadcasting equipment bounding after them. He's still wearing the scarf Carlos bought him; one end hangs over his shoulder and flutters like a streamer at a parade.

Henriette and Köhler are already recruiting some of the other subway-riders as test subjects (Henriette doing the talking, Köhler drawing the blood). Carlos catches their attention with a quick wave. "Off to study Cecil! I'll be back soon."

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Cecil's voice is already playing on the speakers over the NVCR front desk as Carlos signs in: "...have left me feeling renewed, returned as I am to my home after so long away. It's like I'm walking into fresh clean water, even as I lean into the mic."

"Refreshed," mutters Isaña, cradled under Carlos's arm. "Put us through all that and he's _refreshed_."

"I entered the subway, like many of you...and like many of you other riders, I was witness to the fates of countless worlds and peoples, of cities and wars, and celebrations, and deaths, and kisses and frost and knives and cold empty void. I met so many beings and saw so much...and it took years, Night Vale. Years I have been missing you since I left you to the weather."

Carlos stops cold in the middle of the hall.

"I was so sure everything would be different," continues Cecil, and now Carlos understands the layers of grief and disbelief and thankfulness in his wonder-filled voice. "I was prepared for so many changes...but I see that, by the station clock, you have only been without me for four minutes. I was even prepared for — well, of course I could hardly expect my Carlos to just sit around and wait for years on end — but, oh, Night Vale! It turns out he was holding me the whole time."

A faceless, denim-clad City Council messenger child (its daemon, as a naked mole rat, on its shoulder) slips past Carlos with a note. By the time it delivers the message to Cecil — who dutifully announces that all subway service is suspended until further notice — Carlos is in his office, still reeling.

If he had any doubts, they vanish when Cecil comes in. The indoor fluorescents reveal a level of detail that the streetlights didn't: more of Cecil's hair has gone white than it was this morning, and when Carlos steps forward and cups Cecil's face, he finds the faintest of new lines around Cecil's eyes.

"Years?" he says softly.

The new lines crinkle up as Cecil smiles. "But I'm home."

"Home — but maybe not home free." Carlos's mind races. "Have I told you about how living in worlds that aren't your own can make you sick? We have to take blood and DNA samples, do some tests, find out how much damage you've taken. We can use those other samples you gave us a couple months ago as a benchmark. Probably can't draw any broader conclusions about the rate of degradation because your daemon was still here — in theory that should cushion you against the effects — maybe even make you immune, but that's not guaranteed, and I don't want to risk the assumption. Do you have any specific idea how _many_ years you were gone?"

"I, um...I managed to actively document a little over two, so probably two and a half, give or take?" says Cecil, self-conscious. Like he thinks he was being self-indulgent or silly. "Would you like a copy of the tapes? If you don't mind them being edited down — I got a little embarrassingly existential at times."

"You have _documentation?_ " breathes Carlos. "Cecil, do you have any idea how many ritual sacrifices I would have been willing to make for that?"

Cecil fusses with Carlos's collar. "I did think you might like it. When I thought there was any chance of you seeing it at all."

"It sounds _amazing_. How did you keep track of the dates? Were the sunrise and sunset reasonably consistent from world to world?"

"Oh, gosh, no! Sometimes it looked like time wasn't even passing at the same rate from world to world, or at the same rate outside the car as inside. And during the really long and void-y bits it seemed quite likely that time had abandoned me altogether, and I was trapped in suspension in a single moment for all eternity," says Cecil cheerfully. "Probably would have lost my mind completely...if not for some sweet and prescient man having the foresight to give me a working watch."

Carlos's heart catches. He's not an experimental theologian first _or_ a boyfriend first. He's both — and that's important, because being both is probably what just saved Cecil's sanity.

Years. Alone for years. Good god.

"Then we absolutely have to study those tapes," he says, gazing into Cecil's half-seeing eyes. "Depending on what's on them, we might be able to answer all kinds of questions about the physics of the subway portals. And we'll have to bring you back in for follow-ups! Especially since, if your health has suffered, we can find out if long-term exposure to your own world will start repairing the damage. The implications for Night Vale's own otherwordly citizens could be enormous! And, oh, wow, we have to get some food in you — and we have to have sex — and you have to get some sleep in a real bed, not —"

"Go back to that last one," says Cecil sharply.

Heat rises in Carlos's cheeks. "I mean, we don't _have_ to — I just thought — my god, Cecil, I've been _holding your daemon_ , but of course if you want to say no —"

That's as far as he gets before Cecil spins him around and shoves him up against the door, clinging to fistfuls of his chapel coat, one thigh pressed between his legs.

" _Carlos,_ " the Voice of Night Vale _growls_. "What do you think I've spent all these lonely years _thinking_ about?"

"Ah," says Carlos, in the moment before Cecil kisses him.

He runs his hands down the back of Cecil's T-shirt as he returns the attention, deep and hungry. Cecil moans in appreciation and bucks his hips — and oh sweet lord he's hard already, just grinding on Carlos's leg. (On the carpet by their feet Khoshekh wraps around Isaña, purring like a steel drum and nipping her ear, making her squeak with delight.)

Using the door as leverage, Carlos arches against Cecil in turn, and oh, oh that's nice. Oh yes. His heart thumps with pleasure and adoration; his nerves sing at the way Cecil shivers, resonating through all the hundreds of points where their bodies are pressed together.

It's not perfect — Carlos is wearing jeans, okay, and having a zipper dig into you while you're starting to get it up is not the most comfortable thing in the world. But fixing the problem would require letting go of Cecil, which is _so_ not worth it. He'll take this moment of imperfect heaven over perfection any day. He'll take Cecil shuddering and coming apart in his arms over anything else in the universe.

Until Cecil pulls away from Carlos's mouth and slides slowly, sensually down Carlos's body.

Is he about to make the zipper a non-issue? Is Carlos going to become a guy with a _pattern_ of getting blowjobs in public places? Because he is...surprisingly okay with that. "Mmm, Cecil, Cecil —"

— and then Cecil slides _all_ the way down, hitting the carpet with a soft thump.

Oh, hell, he wasn't being sexy, he was _collapsing_ , and Carlos is the worst boyfriend _ever_. "Cecil!" he exclaims, dropping to his knees and feeling Cecil's forehead, which has broken out in a cold sweat. "Can you hear me? Don't try to get up. Are you hurt?"

Cecil, mercifully still conscious, bats Carlos's touch away. "'S fine. Jus' woozy," he pants. "Be better in a minute."

"Oh, no. You thought you were fine before, too. Khoshekh, where's the alethiometer?" The margay hops off the ground and floats over to one of the desk drawers. "If _it_ says you're okay, I'll believe it. And if it says you need to spend the night in the hospital, or anything else, we're doing that instead."

"Sweet...smouldering...aggravatingly conscientious Carlos," sighs Cecil. The phrase leaves him momentarily out of breath; Carlos swallows hard and squeezes his hands. "S'long as I'm looking things up...have you been...tested recently?"

Carlos blushes. A year or so ago he had never even _seen_ an alethiometer, and now he's being offered a complimentary STI scan with one. "I, uh, got results back last week," he admits. "After that night all the Dust was getting sucked out of town," _and we brought it back by nearly having sex in your car, because apparently sometimes that's how physics works,_ "it seemed like I might want to know."

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

With the subway entrances closed, the experimental theologians relocate to the well-lit NVCR lobby.

Cecil hold out one arm for Köhler to swab down and draw blood from, and describes the physical conditions on the subway for Henriette to take notes. He's wrapped in Carlos's chapel coat, supplied with a couple of vending-machine granola bars and a bottle of mango juice. Khoshekh sits in his lap, getting scratched under the chin by Cecil's free hand. Carlos stands off to the side, printing up labels for their sample containers.

"How soon will you have results?" asks Cecil with interest, using English for the benefit of the team. "An hour? Two?"

"The real world is not _CSI_ ," says Köhler brusquely. "We will have a full analysis within two weeks. Perhaps three."

Carlos refrains from pointing out that, when it comes to flaunting the constraints of "the real world," TV has nothing on Night Vale. "Did you drive in to work today?" he asks Cecil.

The alethiometer confirmed that Cecil isn't in critical condition, but his body chemistry is going to be out of whack for a while, and the dizzy spells are going to be a continuing risk until he's had enough fluids and nutrients to put his blood pressure back to normal. Getting behind the wheel at this point is definitely not an option.

"I, um." Cecil looks self-consciously at Khoshekh. "What _did_ we do...'today'?"

Khoshekh rubs his face reassuringly against his human's hand. "We drove."

"Then I'll take you home." Carlos hands Köhler the labels and takes his place at Cecil's side, bandaging the needle-stick site. Cecil gets to his feet slowly, holding Carlos's arm. He doesn't sway or stumble, but Carlos puts a supportive hand on the small of his back anyway, and turns to the others. "If you guys need help packing up the equipment first...."

"We've got it under control," says Henriette, with just the hint of a knowing smirk. "Run along now."

"Okay. We're off." Carlos takes a breath — it would be nice to do this all by insinuation, but they have strict team safety rules about being clear on when you plan to be away, for how long — and adds, "Don't wait up."

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Cecil spends the drive gazing out the windows in quiet joy, gasping in recognition every so often at at some little detail he had forgotten while he was away.

He doesn't let go of Khoshekh the entire trip.

The sense of blessed homecoming intensifies when they step into his tiny apartment. He touches the walls with something like reverence; laughs in delight at the contents of the front closet; hugs a bookcase like an old friend.

He doesn't stop to turn on any lights. Carlos has to hang back in the doorway and feel around on the wall for a switch. Cecil sees the same amount of detail no matter how dark it is, and Khoshekh's night-vision is equal to a downtown apartment at night. At last an underused ceiling light flickers on, and Carlos kicks off his shoes before following Cecil around the now-visible corner into the kitchen.

"My fridge~!" croons Cecil, practically dancing over to the appliance. "Dear Carlos, can I get you anything to drink? I don't remember what's in here, but I'm sure there are a few things that haven't gone bad — no, wait, _none_ of it has gone bad! — come and see!"

The bulb in the fridge is burned out. No matter; Carlos isn't interested in the contents of the fridge anyway. He wraps his arms around Cecil from behind and rests his head on Cecil's scarf-draped shoulder, noting with a flush of happiness that the magnet he got Cecil at Christmas is present too, tacking an espresso-machine license up on the freezer.

His embrace makes Cecil go self-consciously still. "Carlos? Should I...jump in the shower or anything? I haven't exactly had a chance to bathe these past couple of years, and if it shows...."

Carlos hadn't even thought about it. "Honestly, you smell like...." He sniffs Cecil's hair. "Pine trees."

"Do I? But the pine-scented stop was months ago."

"I guess it's long-lasting?" Carlos nuzzles Cecil's neck, pulling them closer. "Cecil, I — I don't want a drink. I just want — well — I'm not a hundred percent sure, but it seems likely that anything involving more touching and less clothing will fall within a reasonable margin of error —"

Cecil pushes the fridge door shut. "Mmm, _Carlos_. I forgot how hot it is when you talk scholarly."

He cranes his neck to get an over-the-shoulder kiss, an angle Carlos has never tried before and finds more than agreeable, then leads them stumbling toward the bedroom, pausing just long enough to glance in the bathroom. ("Still here!") It's even darker through these doors; Carlos bangs his knee on a piece of furniture he can't see. "Oof — Cecil, is there a light —?"

"Oh, sorry! Yes — somewhere —"

Khoshekh finds and hits the switch.

The room glows into visibility: not from a single lamp, or even several, but from hundreds of tiny yellow-white string lights. A thick stripe of them runs the whole length of the wall; one set hangs in front of the curtains on the single window like a glittering waterfall; another does the same over the headboard of the bed, which is king-size and unmade, the rumpled sheets beckoning them in. It's like an Asriel-emulsion photogram come to life.

"Sorry it's such a mess," says Cecil sheepishly. "If I'd known back then that I'd be having you over, I would've straightened things up."

Carlos mentally translates _back then_ to _this morning_. "Cecil, it's...beautiful."

He starts unwinding the scarf from Cecil's neck. Seems like a safe move. Still, he uses slow, careful motions, in case Cecil wants to tell him to stop.

Instead, Cecil breaks into a small, pleased smile, and gently lifts Carlos's glasses off his face.

Satisfied with the level of touch his human is getting, Khoshekh floats over to the margay-sized wicker basket at the foot of the bed. The front edge is low enough for a little armadillo to climb in on her own, so he flops down on the cushion and lets Isaña hop up after him. "At least someone's bed is made," she teases, cuddling up against him.

From above them, Cecil snorts. "Sure, because he never uses it."

Glasses, scarf, watch all go to rest on the dresser. Carlos follows Cecil past their daemons. "Yeah, Isaña sleeps in my bed too."

"What? No, he doesn't do that either." Cecil lands on the mattress, swinging his legs up onto the sheets, while Carlos gets one knee up on the edge and rests a hand on his thigh. "He squeezes into random places — I've told you this." Carlos must look blank, because Cecil frowns: "I...did tell you, right? It wasn't just something I imagined when I was fantasizing about being home?"

"Maybe it just slipped my mind?" offers Carlos.

He doesn't really believe it. And he can tell Cecil doesn't either.

So he changes the subject by squeezing Cecil's leg, and leaning in for a soft kiss. "You're not imagining this, though, okay? You're really home now. I'm really here."

"You're here," echoes Cecil. "Oh, Carlos, I...I think I need to lie down again."

He hangs onto Carlos's T-shirt (it's one of Carlos's sillier theology tees: a diagram of the Standard Model of elementary particles, captioned _Particle Physics Is No Small Matter_ ) while Carlos lowers him back onto the pillows. "How bad is it?" asks Carlos, propping himself up on his elbows and searching Cecil's complexion for danger signs. "Let me get you some water."

Cecil clings tighter. "Don't go!"

That sense of freshness and renewal Cecil felt on arriving home must be wearing off, leaving room for the fear of unreality to come crashing down all at once. Carlos strokes Cecil's hair, wishing he could do more. All his own need to yell at his boyfriend for wandering off has evaporated; Cecil has been amply punished for that already. "Cecil, please...don't make me sit here and watch while you pass out."

Cecil tugs at the hem of his shirt. "Then at least...let me take this off you first?"

This is a compromise Carlos can live with.

The fabric is sticky and dusty from being out under the sun for most of the day, and Carlos is all too happy to let Cecil pull it over his head and throw it across the room. He's normally self-conscious about being shirtless, but only because people tend to stare — he isn't a bodybuilder or anything, it's just that he spends a lot of time hauling heavy equipment around, and it shows — and the feeling of Cecil's eyes all over him is unexpectedly thrilling.

So small is Cecil's apartment that Carlos can duck into the bathroom without Isaña having to move from her basket. The light in here sputters, but works well enough for him to find a glass and fill it.

He does get a start when he sees the missing mirror. The front of the medicine cabinet still has its unfinished wooden backing, with bits of glue left from where it was torn off. Odd. Cecil has no use for mirrors — they're just a flat, blank surface to him — but that's no reason to go to the effort of ripping it out.

Not that it's a big deal right now. Carlos returns to find that Cecil's belt has joined his shirt on the floor, and the sight of Cecil splayed out on his back wearing Carlos's chapel coat makes Carlos catch his breath.

He's never been turned on just by _looking_ at something before.

He can't stop to appreciate it long; he has to help Cecil sit up and drink. Cecil leans against his bare chest and gulps the water, then drops a cool, damp kiss on his jaw. "I do hope you won't mind being on top tonight."

Self-consciousness creeps in around the edges of Carlos's arousal. "Cecil...I don't know what you're expecting, but I've never...."

"Dear Carlos," murmurs Cecil, nuzzling his neck. "I will be overjoyed with anything you want to do while you're up there. So long as it isn't too acrobatic, your fragile mortal body remains in some kind of physical contact with mine, and I wake up tomorrow in the bed that you slept in."

Carlos rests his palms on Cecil's lapels and pushes the chapel coat over Cecil's shoulders. Are Cecil's bones more prominent than they used to be, or is he imagining it? "Yeah. Yeah, okay. I can give you that."

Cecil slides sinuously out of the coat, leans in for another deep kiss, then pulls his own t-shirt off and flings it across the room so hard it trails sequins.

It's the first time Carlos has seen Cecil's bare torso, including the scars on Cecil's chest and stomach. He was expecting some — it's not like he hasn't noticed the faint marks of discoloration that circle Cecil's wrists and ankles, souvenirs of the chafing of some ill-fitted cuffs, and by now he's stared at Cecil's legs enough to notice the thin line on one of Cecil's calves. But there are more than he realized. And while some are faint like the trepanation scar on Cecil's forehead, others are from wounds that clearly would've been fatal if they hadn't been sewn up in time. 

The sight is briefly dizzying. It's one thing to know Cecil's life has been dangerous. It's another to see a visual catalog of near misses mapped out on his skin.

Carlos mentally praises whatever twists of fate kept this wonderful man alive and safe for long enough to be with him tonight, and, as Cecil falls back onto the pillows, follows him down.

He ends up supporting his own weight on knees and elbows, as close to Cecil as he can get without putting on any pressure, while Cecil kisses him and arches up toward his bare chest and falls once more into a rhythm of grinding on his leg. Carlos tries to roll his thigh lightly against Cecil in turn, and is rewarded with Cecil shivering and moaning in time with the mattress starting to creak. Down at their feet he knows Isaña is digging her claws into Khoshekh's fur, kneading his back with fierce determination.

When Cecil tries to move against Carlos in kind, Carlos actually flinches. He's _so_ hard, and the toothy metal zipper is _so_ unforgiving. "Oh, god, Cecil, if you're gonna do that, get my pants off first."

"Thought you'd never ask," breathes Cecil. It's a stock phrase, one of those casual strings of words you toss into a conversation without thinking much about it, except then Cecil repeats it, slower, pain and wonder filtering through: "I — I thought you'd _never ask_."

He's gentle when undoing that horrible zipper, hands brushing against Carlos through his boxers in anbaric little ways. His arms aren't long enough to shove Carlos's jeans more than a few inches down Carlos's waist from this position, but it's enough. "Cecil, please," groans Carlos, voice sounding rough and strange to his ears. "T-touch —"

Then at last Cecil is palming Carlos through his boxers, and _oh_.

Carlos doesn't have the concentration to keep kissing anymore. He just pants hotly against Cecil's neck while he thrusts into Cecil's waiting hand, giving himself over to slow lazy motion and the feelings it sends strobing through him.

"Carlos, _Carlos_." Cecil cups the back of his skull, fingers entangling themselves in thick, soft curls. "Tell me what you like."

It's low and sultry and hands-down the sexiest useless question Carlos has ever heard in his life. "This. This's good."

"Right, but — details," purrs Cecil. "When you get yourself off — you do, right? — how do you do it?"

Carlos is so confused. Normally he finds confusion exciting and worth pursuing, but right now he's _busy_. "I just...move my hand up 'n' down...until it's over? Is there more to it?"

Cecil catches his breath. "Oh, my darling Carlos," he says dreamily, "the experiments I am going to _do_ on you."

He pulls his hand to his mouth and sucks on his fingers, two by two, and if the sight of Cecil tonguing things is a turn-on for Carlos in general, the close-up view of his throat bobbing as he swallows is flat-out dizzying. Then he's stroking Carlos again, firm and slick and fast — Carlos's hips snap forward, and in moments he's shaking from head to toe as he comes across Cecil's stomach.

Cecil croons his name over and over, kissing his ear and the line of his jaw, sounding reverent and smug all at once.

After taking a moment to catch his breath, Carlos levers himself up on his elbows and beams down at Cecil. "That was — great. You're great," he says, and it's not the most poetic thing in the world, but after all, poetry is Cecil's department. Carlos's department is _accuracy_. "Is that — I mean, should I try to copy that, is that what does it for you, or was it just...a thing you were testing?"

"Mmm. Little of both." Now that he's done with Carlos, Cecil is undulating his own body with a little more fervor. "Gotta try somethin' else next time...'s been like thirty seconds an' you're using complete sentences again."

"Hey, don't go drawing any premature conclusions. You have to do a _lot_ more trials before you can establish a baseline." Carlos has never in his life had any kind of long post-orgasmic afterglow. And the last thing he wants is for Cecil to feel inadequate, to not realize that his presence alone makes Carlos happier than Carlos knows how to quantify.

He tries to put all that feeling into a trail of appreciative kisses down Cecil's neck, sliding one hand down the side of Cecil's sticky torso and palming tentatively at the front of Cecil's olive-green flared pants. Cecil arches against him, one hand splayed across his shoulder blade and the other tangled fiercely in his hair. "Yes, Carlos, that's good, just like that...!"

They're both getting semen all over them like this. It's a mess. And it's not bothering Carlos nearly as much as he feels like it should be. "Should I stop and clean you up a little?" he asks, just to be sure. "Or just, um, go for it?"

Cecil moans, and Carlos feels the pinch of Khoshekh nipping Isaña's ears in gentle reproach. "Carlos, please, _please_ let's get my pants off."

So Carlos unwinds himself from Cecil's embrace and scoots down the mattress. He pauses just long enough to shuck off his jeans the rest of the way and kick them aside, then helps Cecil drag those hideous pants down over his narrow hips.

Turns out Cecil is wearing lace-trimmed black briefs.

Not even because he knew he was getting laid tonight, either. For all Carlos knows, he might wear these every day. They're a lot more form-fitting than Carlos's boxers, and only half-covering Cecil by this point — it's a cinch for Carlos to crook his fingers and tug them down, and then he's the one stroking Cecil, who claws at the sheets and bucks up into his fist.

Cecil is — small. Not that Carlos is exactly a porn star himself, he's not criticizing. Well. To be honest, he's sort of doing the opposite of criticizing. Even this hard, Cecil fits with perfect neatness into his hand — and it strikes Carlos that he could probably _do_ some of the moves he's seen in the porn he's been wat— that is, in the _important preliminary research_ he's been conducting. (A thorough review of the literature is a key part of being a responsible boyfriend-slash-experimental-theologian.) The data were mostly intimidating at the time, because frankly there is no way Carlos is fitting ten inches of _anything_ in his mouth, but looking at Cecil he's suddenly finding it hard to think about anything else.

Both of Cecil's legs are wrapping around his waist now, ankles hooked behind him, pulling him in. Carlos slings his free arm over one and strokes the back of Cecil's thigh, the skin mostly unmarked and blissfully smooth. "Can I — go down on you?"

Cecil squeaks with joy and practically kicks Carlos down into his lap. "Yes! Yes, yes yes!"

Breaking into a grin, Carlos repositions himself lower, feet hanging off the edge of the mattress. With his free hand he reaches for one of Cecil's. "I don't know what you like, so —" He cups Cecil's palm against the side of his head. "If you want to move me around at all...."

He can actually feel Cecil's heated erection throb in his grip. " _Car_ los! Can I — _pull your hair?_ "

"That's the idea, yeah."

Cecil lets out a strangled squeal of delight, then buries his hand in Carlos's curls and tugs him forward.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Turns out Cecil _does_ have a long boneless post-orgasmic afterglow.

Carlos isn't tired, but he's more than happy to lie down in the mussed sheets and let Cecil flop all over him. Khoshekh carries Isaña up to drop her gently next to Carlos's side, licks her face in gratitude, then rolls up against the small of Cecil's back.

Carlos can't stop touching Cecil's skin. Soft, aimless, gentle touches, anywhere it's easy for his hand to reach. The constellations of tiny bulbs that light up the room cast mandalas of shadows wherever his fingertips land.

"Gonna have to clean us up at some point," he says presently. He wants to wake up next to Cecil, not _glued_ to Cecil.

"Mrgh," says Cecil, head pillowed on Carlos's chest. His disapproval is clear.

Khoshekh sighs. "I'll get it. Don't move."

He swirls off through the air, tail nearly hitting Carlos in the nose as it whisks by.

Instinct makes Carlos jerk backward. Which was probably the point: Khoshekh is messing with him, reasserting that life is normal again by smugly throwing Carlos off-balance just because he can. _Cats._ Gotta love 'em.

...although no matter how much Carlos loves and trusts Cecil, he still doesn't want Cecil touching _his_ daemon. Maybe because he's an assault survivor, or maybe because in this area he's a completely average person, whose stomach still turns at the thought of anyone touching him there.

Under his breath, he says, "You don't expect...I mean, just because Khoshekh can be this casual, it doesn't follow that Isaña...."

Cecil pries his arm up off Carlos's chest and shushes Carlos with a touch on the lips. "If you wanted it, you'd tell me. 'M not gonna ask."

It isn't long before Khoshekh returns with a warm washcloth, and Cecil reluctantly rolls off of Carlos's chest, gazing adoringly into...or at least, in the general direction of...Carlos's eyes. (His focus can be imprecise like that. Carlos has gotten used to it.) Carlos cleans him up slowly, running a gentle touch over some of the scars. "These don't hurt or anything, do they?"

Cecil yawns, blissfully unbothered. "No pain receptors, 'member?"

"Cecil...."

"Carlos. 'S fine. Most of 'em 've been there ages." He notices Carlos's hand lingering on a couple of jagged lines that curve across the right side of his stomach, like someone tried to tear into him with a knife. "Like, that? Tenth-grade book report."

It takes Carlos a moment to find the logical connection. "Librarians?"

"Mmhmm." Cecil traces the longer, perfectly straight line down the middle of his chest, starting at the top of his sternum and cutting most of the way down his rib cage. "And this was a couple years before you came to town."

"Surgery?" guesses Carlos. The scar has the precision of someone deliberately opening up Cecil's torso; he really hopes it was for sound medical reasons.

"Sorta. Ritual."

Close enough. Carlos touches an uneven patch of taut, whitish skin under Cecil's collarbone: three fingers wide, surrounding the curled line from the closure of what must have been an ugly wound. "And this...did you get shot?"

"Well, not on purpose," says Cecil pleasantly.

Police shootout? Children's firearms training gone wrong? Confused and aggressive army from some other world, spat through a portal from the middle of a battlefield to the middle of the Raúl's? Carlos doesn't ask, just switches to working out his concern by making sure every inch of their bodies is clean and dry before he tucks the sheet around them both.

Khoshekh gets up one last time, to switch out the lights.

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

Morning brings Carlos the realization that he forgot to bring a change of clothes. Cecil digs through his closet (which definitely looks bigger on the inside than the dimensions of the building should allow) and finds a clean pair of briefs (the non-lacy kind) and khaki shorts in Carlos's size, then lends Carlos a tunic to top it off, navy blue with embroidered flowers and leaves all over the trim.

Carlos sits at the kitchen table and pulls distantly at the leaves while he waits for the coffee to perk. "Is it just me, or is this embroidery moving?"

"Not just you." Isaña, on the tabletop, leans against his sleeve. "Mmm. Everyone's gonna know we slept over."

"If they don't know already," says Carlos, sheepish but kinda proud. "You know how the Sheriff's secret police gossip...."

His pre-caffeinated brain takes a couple of seconds to catch up with the implications of that. Secret police. Constant observation ("for your protection"). They probably had an _audience_. Oh, god.

Carlos's head is facedown in his arms on the table when Cecil comes out of the bathroom, Khoshekh at his elbow. Being able to share senses with your daemon means you don't need mirrors to shave. "Carlos? Is everything all right?"

"Forgot we were being watched," mumbles Carlos. If his face gets any hotter it's going to set the table on fire. Isaña is almost totally rolled-up, the plates of her shell ready to snap shut at any moment.

The coffee machine lets out a sound like a flock of jackhammers, indicating that it's done. Cecil interrupts it by retrieving the pot; Carlos can hear him pouring. "Most of the time, yes. Not during the sex. If that's what you mean? No, André and I have an arrangement. I don't develop or incite any plans for government-subverting action in bed — not that I would at _any_ time, of course! — and he gives me and any companions I may have a little privacy."

Carlos files away the plural mention of _companions_ to ask about later. "You're sure you trust this guy?"

"Of course! — ooh, I forgot I had this mug!" Cecil pours more coffee, and sets the cup a few inches from Carlos's head. "Yes, André and I have been close for years. _Very_ close."

The suggestive deepening of his voice makes Carlos lift his eyes from the table. A steaming mug sits close enough that the words printed across its side ( _Danger, I'm Radio-Active_ ) blur just out of focus. "How close is very?"

"Um." Cecil takes the chair across from him, sipping from a mug printed with a stylish vintage theater ad. "Close enough that I'm fairly sure those are his briefs you're wearing."

With a groan, Carlos hides his face again. "Should I even ask about the khakis?"

"Depends. Do you want to know that they were Earl's?"

Maybe Carlos should just go back to Cecil's bed and hide there for the rest of forever. Earl may no longer be in this world, but the thought of anyone who used to know him seeing Carlos walk home in his shorts is too mortifying to contemplate.

"Dear Carlos. Drink your coffee; it'll brighten you up." Cecil uses his bare foot to caress Carlos's under the table. "Earl's been gone for years. He's hardly going to come around now just to demand his clothes back."

Carlos rallies enough to sit up. "Three months," he corrects automatically.

"Hm?"

"Earl. You do mean Earl Harlan, right?" Former local Scoutmaster. Voluntarily left this world, to help rebuild a society that had been ravaged by un-hooded spectres. Kinda-sorta gave Carlos his stamp of approval on the way out. Carlos is still trying to live up to it. "He's been gone three months. Our time, anyway. Not sure how long it's been in his time."

"Oh," says Cecil.

And now Carlos starts gulping his coffee, because he really needs to be lucid enough to comfort Cecil better than this.

"People must still be missing him," says Cecil softly, hands curled around his mug. "His troops won't even have graduated to the next level yet. So many things here that people are still in the middle of, and I've just...moved on. Or forgotten."

"It wouldn't be healthy if you hadn't." Carlos bracelets his fingers around Cecil's wrist, still playing footsie under the table. "You've had time to move on. And you said on-air how long you've been gone, so the news is going to get around. It's hardly the weirdest thing that's ever happened. People will understand."

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

They make bacon and eggs; they wash up; Carlos borrows a spare toothbrush; they spend the whole morning finding little ways to touch. Cecil offers Carlos the use of his car to get back to the house, and if Cecil's still-recovering condition means he basically just invited himself over for the morning, well, Carlos is all right with that.

It takes them a while to get out the apartment door. They have to make out in the entryway for a few minutes, which slows things down.

But at last they're stepping out into the brilliant desert daytime, daemons following at their heels. Carlos squints and covers his eyes, waiting to adjust enough that he can see the parking lot; Cecil stops and touches his arm. "Are you all right?"

"Fine, fine! Just a little dazzled. Give me a second."

"Ah," says Cecil. He had normal vision all throughout childhood, so he's used to the idea of bright sunny days and dark velvet nights, even if he no longer experiences them himself.

It makes Carlos curious all over again about how Cecil's vision operates. "So, for you, does it look exactly the same out here as it did in there, or...?"

"Well, no...it's brighter indoors. It almost always is," says Cecil. "Um, I say _bright_ , but it's not exactly brightness, any more than it is loudness. It's just...intensity. I've told you that part, right?"

Carlos nods. "What's the most intense thing you can see right now?"

"You."

Isaña, on the asphalt next to Carlos's shoes, rolls half-closed with pleased embarrassment.

"Both you and Isaña — your bare hair and skin," clarifies Cecil. "Next is me and Khoshekh, and...." He turns in a half-circle, looking at the scene all around them. "...and our current official observers, and also Janis Rio, down the street. People are always brightest. We don't really glow through our clothes, but clothes are bright enough on their own that they're easy to see. Oh, um, I say people, but I should say adults. Children are dimmer. Harder to spot."

Carlos's heart starts to pound a little faster, and this time it's not because he's being flattered. "So what's the dimmest thing you can see?"

"Oh, that's easy! The sky. It's always solid darkness. Unless there's a plane going by, or something."

"Buildings are brighter than out in the scrublands? Books, especially dense ones, are brighter than other household objects like dishes? Children start getting noticeably brighter in the last few weeks or months before they settle?"

"Yes! All of that! How did you guess?"

Carlos is rooted to the spot, heartbeat thumping in his ears. "Cecil, _are you seeing Rusakov particles?_ "

"No, Carlos, I would have _told_ you if it was something related to your studies," says Cecil, affronted. "There aren't any particles at all. Just things, in exactly the same shapes and sizes that Khoshekh sees them."

"But you see them with an intensity in direct proportion to their Rusakov concentrations." Carlos pictures the standard model of elementary particles on his discarded T-shirt. Quarks and leptons and bosons and more. All subject to wave-particle duality...."Are you seeing Rusakov _radiation?_ "

"I'm afraid I don't know what that is."

"Neither do I. Neither does _anyone_. It's one of the biggest blank spots in modern quantum physics — you can't exactly run Young's experiment when the particles are more interested in clustering around your equipment than creating diffraction patterns — half the theorists figure it doesn't even exist, the other half are still trying to come up with some kind of way to test it, and you — you're _seeing_ it? With your _eyes?_ " 

"Um," says Cecil.

Carlos feels like shaking him. "What _now?_ "

"Well, it's...not exactly my eyes?" He closes them, pressing his fingertips gently against his eyelids to keep them down. "Khoshekh, turn around, so he'll know I'm not getting it from you....Hold up some number of fingers, go on."

Carlos does.

"Two," says Cecil, correctly. "Now three. Five. One. None."

"You always cover your forehead when you don't want to look at something," realizes Carlos. "You close your eyes, too — but that's just a reflex, or a social cue, or something, isn't it? You got trepanned, and now you're _seeing_ through that hole in your skull."

"Oh, I bet that's it!" says Cecil. "Do you think that's why some people call it a third eye?"

Carlos is starting to feel a little hysterical. "Is there anything _else_ you haven't mentioned about yourself that I might want to know?"

Cecil thinks about it. He's quite serious, respecting Carlos's agitation...but clearly not sharing it. He might as well have been trying to remember if he knew any good potato-flour recipes.

"Have you told him about either of the prophecies?" suggests Khoshekh.

"Oh, of course!" exclaims Cecil. "Carlos, would you want to know about either of the prophecies I'm in? There's one from Mom, and you've probably already seen the one on the tablets down at City Hall...."

No. No, Carlos has not, this is the first he's even heard of it, and he's _so angry_ with Cecil right now. Or at least — he thinks it's anger. What else would explain the hot rush of blood through his veins, the shortness of his breath and the fog in his head, the way he's all taut-limbed and speechless and just wants to grab Cecil and kiss —

— oh.

"Do you think we could go back inside?" says Carlos faintly.

"If you like." Cecil looks concerned. "Is everything all right?"

"Fine! Absolutely fine!" cries Carlos. "You're just _impossible_ , you don't even appreciate on how many levels, you're personally rewriting my entire field of study by _existing_ — and I really, _really_ want to have sex with you again."

(He tactfully ignores the muffled spit-take from the nearest bush.)

 

{.....}-{.....}-{.....}>

 

They make it all the way back to the bedroom before Cecil puts his hands on Carlos's chest and pushes him gently away.

"It's okay! You didn't do anything wrong," he says, anticipating Carlos's worries once more. "It's just — the Carlos I remember was never quite so — forward. Don't get me wrong, it's been wonderful!...but what if — what if it means this isn't the same Night Vale I left?"

"Cecil...." Carlos tries to caress his two-tone hair.

Cecil flinches away from the touch.

All right. Nothing physical for a minute. Just calm, sober presentation of evidence against Cecil's latest bout of existential fear. " _I_ was never this forward. Your memories aren't wrong. We'll have hard evidence when the DNA tests come back, but everything else is the way you remember it too, right? The station, the people, your alethiometer, your home...."

"I think it is," admits Cecil. "But what if I only think that because of how much I _want_ it to be true? You can't imagine how desperately I — and it wouldn't be right, wouldn't be fair to _your_ Cecil, for me to just swoop in here and take his place —"

Khoshekh flows up Cecil's side and presses against his chest. "Carlos...!"

This time Carlos doesn't jump, doesn't stagger, doesn't hesitate. He rests his hand on the back of Khoshekh's neck, ruffling the soft marbled fur.

Cecil freezes in place with a choked gasp, lashes fluttering.

"This is your daemon," says Carlos, rubbing behind Khoshekh's ears and watching the shock, the intensity, the _pleasure_ it sends through Cecil to be touched like this up close: to feel it from within the same timestream, the same universe. "This is your Night Vale. You are my Cecil."

These fears will keep coming back. Maybe until Cecil has been safe for as long as he was lost, maybe even longer than that. But Carlos will be there for him, every time: as long as destiny, mortality, and Cecil himself are kind enough to allow it. Because he wants to learn everything there is to know about Cecil — from the ongoing string of theologically mind-blowing revelations to the tiniest of personal details, like the noises Cecil makes when Carlos's tongue moves against him in a certain way — and he's starting to understand that that will take a lifetime, and he's okay with that.

"Mguh," says Cecil, and, with a little sob of delight, falls against him.

"My Cecil," repeats Carlos, thrilling to the words, punctuating them with a rain of soft kisses. Oh, yes...he is so much more than okay with that.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Cecil On The N.T.A.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1746251) by [branwyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/branwyn/pseuds/branwyn)




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